Hi To Everyone. I have an old sealife with two external strobes and wish to hook 'em up to my 5050z. How well would it work if at all?

Hi Robert,

It may be helpful if you tell us what the strobes are. How are they triggered (wire or fiber)and the like. If you don't get a good answer here you might want to come over to the scuba board and ask there. We have a bunch of active UW photographers, many of them use the 5050. http://www.scubaboard.com/index.php . There is also a web site called digital diver that you can post on and most likely find what you need.

You may be able to trigger the Sealife strobes with the c5050 when the digicam is set to slave, but the real test will be to control the strobe's output.

If you rely on the accepted formula that states Guide Number equals Aperture times Distance ( ISO 100), then all you'd need to know is the GN of the Sealife. In the past I have been unable to receive this information directly from the manufacturer. Unless you have better results garnering this information than I had, you'll be left to testing on your own.

For the sake of immediacy though, let's assume the underwater Guide Number for the strobe is 18. If so, then if your strobe's distance to subject was 3 feet, then you would set your c5050's aperture to f/6 at ISO 100. To review:

GN=A*D (ISO 100)
(gn)18=(A)6 times(D)3

Keep in mind I stated strobe to subject and not lens to subject.

BTW, the c5050's internal strobe offers acceptable macro output performance ( strobe to subject distance around two feet or less), especially on night dives.

hth,
kadushi bob